I grew up in Arizona and can tell you in my lifetime there has never been a more polarizing presidential candidate than Donald Trump. On one hand, many people who have despised politics for years – if not their entire lives – are excited by this carnival barker who promises to wreck the whole political circus. To them Trump is the antidote for the entire Obama era. A vote for him, his supporters believe, is a vote to roll back eight years of a president they despise.
Backed by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Governor Jan Brewer, he will win the Arizona Republican primary by a huge amount collecting the 58 GOP winner-take-all delegates with it.
On the other hand, that doesn’t mean he’s loved. Far from it. His talk of building walls, busing eleven million people to the border, stopping people from an entire religion coming into America often scares and enrages his opponents. Trump will manage to unite progressives, Democrats and even many life long conservatives and Republicans (including the last GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney) to work together on his defeat.
If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, Arizona becomes a much more competitive state come fall. And that may just cost John McCain his U.S. senate seat. More on that next week.
Ted Cruz will pick up votes in eastern Maricopa County and many rural areas with heavy Mormon populations. But it won’t be enough to catch Trump.
John Kasich is the invisible man in the state. Show an Arizonan a picture of the Ohio governor and nine out of ten won’t be able to tell you who it is (and that’s being generous.)
On the Democratic side, there is no family loved more on the left in Arizona than the Clinton’s. I remember like yesterday when Bill Clinton won Arizona in 1996. It was historic because he the first Democrat since Harry Truman to carry the state of Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater. (Incidentally, Goldwater liked Hillary and often pointed out she started her political career as a “Goldwater Girl.”)
Bernie Sanders will get a majority of the votes from college counties like Pima and Coconino, but in voter rich Maricopa County, where it matters, Hillary Clinton will dominate.
I currently have Arizona as a red state (Republican) on my electoral map prediction for November. Trump is uniting a significant “angry white vote” in states like Arizona, but his terrible relationship with Hispanics could put all of the southwestern states in play.